keleton arm which held a tiny roll of
paper in its bony fingers. I felt about again, and found still another
arm, also holding a roll of paper. Then I began to think that my
reason must be going. What I had seen thus far was only an unusually
vivid dream--a vision of my heated imagination. But I knew that I was
awake now, and yet here lay two--no, three (for there was still
another arm)--hard, undeniable, material proofs that what I had
thought was hallucination, might have been reality. Trembling in the
thought that madness was threatening me, I tore open the first roll of
paper. On it was written the name: "Soelling." I caught at the second
and opened it. There stood the word: "Nansen."

I had just strength enough left to catch the third paper and open
it--there was my own name: "Simsen."

Then I sank fainting to the floor.

When I came to myself again, Niels Daae stood beside me with an empty
water bottle, the contents of which were dripping off my person and
off the sofa upon which I was lying. "Here, drink this," he said in a
soothing tone. "It will make you feel better."

I looked about me wildly, as I sipped at the glass of brandy which put
new life into me once more. "What has happened?" I asked weakly.

"Oh, nothing of importance," answered Niels. "You were just about to
commit suicide by means of charcoal gas. Those are mighty bad
ventilators on your old stove there. The wind must have blown them
shut, unless you were fool enough to close them yourself before you
went to bed. If you had not opened the window, you would have already
been too far along the path to Paradise to be called back by a glass
of brandy. Take another."

"How did you get up here?" I asked, sitting upright on the sofa.

"Through the door in the usual simple manner," answered Niels Daae. "I
was on watch last night in the hospital; but Mathiesen's punch is
heavy and my watching was more like sleeping, so I thought it better
to come away in the early morning. As I passed your barracks here, I
saw you sitting in the window in your nightshirt and calling down to
the night watchman that some one was murdering you. I managed to wake
up Jansen down below you, and got into the house through his window.
Do you usually sleep on the bare floor?"

"But where did the arms come from?" I asked, still half bewildered.

"Oh, the devil take those arms," cried Niels. "Just see if you can
stand up all right now. Oh, those arms there? Why, those are t